Filson Tin Cloth Short Lined Cruiser Jacket Dark Tan

Tin Cloth Short Lined Cruiser Jacket in Dark Tan

Waxed cotton is one of the few fabrics that improves with use. The finish scuffs, the creases settle where your body actually moves, and after one winter the jacket looks like yours rather than something off a shelf. This is the short cruiser in dark tan.

This is our own jacket, cut to the classic cruiser pattern. It is not official Filson merchandise and we hold no licence with them.

Cruiser, work jacket or waxed canvas jacket?

All three names describe this shape. Cruiser is the oldest, borrowed from the forestry jackets that carried survey maps in a pocket across the back. A waxed canvas jacket or a wax cotton jacket usually means the same garment, named after its cloth instead of its job. Some people still say oilskin jacket. Search any of them and this is what you are looking for.

What the tin cloth actually does

Heavy duty cotton, waxed so that water beads on the surface instead of soaking in. It is not a raincoat and does not pretend to be one. What it does is shrug off drizzle and cut the wind, then take years of knocks without tearing. A nylon shell will keep you drier in a downpour. This keeps you drier for longer, which is a different thing.

Short lined or fully lined

Short lined means the lining runs through the body but stops before the sleeves carry a full weight of it. You get warmth where you need it without the bulk. If you want the warmer one, the fully lined tin cloth cruiser is the same pattern with more inside it. Short lined suits autumn and mild winter days. Fully lined is for the cold end.

The cut and the pockets

Hip length, so it clears a seat when you sit down and does not ride up on a bike. Shirt style collar. It buttons up the front rather than zipping, which is how these were always made. The cuffs button too, so you can close them against the wind. Pockets sit across the front for the things you carry rather than for show.

Dark tan, or is it brown?

The shade reads tan in daylight and closer to a deep brown indoors. If you searched for a brown waxed jacket and landed here, this is almost certainly what you were after. The black version is the same jacket in a flatter colour that shows the wax less.

Sizing

Waxed cotton has no give at all when it is new. It softens, but it never stretches the way leather does. Measure round the fullest part of your chest over a jumper rather than a shirt, because you will wear this over layers. Then use the table on this page. Sizes run XS to 3XL.

Looking after it

Never put it in a washing machine. The wash strips the wax out and the cotton is left bare. Let mud dry, then brush it off. Wipe the rest with a damp cloth and cold water. Rewax it about once a year, more if you are out in it constantly. Keep it off radiators.

More in our men’s cotton jackets, and the wider men’s jackets range if you want the same cut in leather.